History magazine features tale of Eyemouth fishing boat lost in 1864

Old Eyemouth harbour - picture courtesy of Kevin O'Brien

On October 11, 1864 the Eyemouth fishing boat Gleaner was run down by a Dundee to Newcastle steamer, with the loss of four of the six crew.

One of the crew members who drowned was Paul Fairbairn, the great-great-great-grandfather of Clare Richardson who recounts the sad tale of the life of Paul’s wife Julia in next week’s issue of the ‘Discover Your History’ magazine.

In her quest to find out more about her family history Clare, whose mother came from Reston and father from Cockburnspath, discovered how hard life was for Eyemouth fishermen and their families. She uncovered tragedy, loss, difficult relationships and unusual family connections - her great-great-great-grandmother Julia married her step-father’s brother!

For the magazine article Clare focuses on Julia, born in Cockburnspath in 1841. She married Paul in 1858 and when he died in the fishing accident six year later Julia was left a widow with three children, having already lost a 19 day old son to smallpox.

In the article in ‘Discover Your History’ magazine Claire said of her ancestor Julia: “I often wonder how she coped with so much death and upset in her life.

“She lost a son, her husband, a half-sister, her stepfather, a half-brother, two more sons, two half-brothers, her mother and a grandson by the time she was in her early forties. As I myself approach 40, I cannot begin to comprehend how she dealt with all this loss.”

The Scotsman reported on the collision that cost the life of Paul and three others, saying that the two survivors reported shouting and waving lanterns to attract the attention of the crew of the Dalhousie steamer. Their efforts were in vain and the steamer did not alter its course, resulting in the two vessels colliding.

The Scotsman describes how “the calamity has produced deep gloom in Eyemouth, and a strong feeling of indignation has been roused by the carelessness which it is alleged, was exhibited by those in charge of the steam vessel,” adding that the authorities were investigating.

Julia remarried in 1868, at Lamberton Toll, this time to a merchant seaman, John Fisher. It does not seem to have been a match made in heaven and on discovering that John and Julia went on have five children together, Julia’s great-great-great-grandaughter Claire uncovered some interesting additions to the birth certificates of three of those children.

“In the parents’ section of the certificate it states: Julia Paterson married 26 May 1868 to John Fisher, Seaman, who she declares is not the father of the child and further that she has had no communication with him since they ceased to live together about 8/10/14 years ago,” said Clare.

“Why would she mention John Fisher’s name but then go on to dismiss him as the father?”

By the early 1870s Julia had lost her husband, stepfather and half brother and as that decade progressed she also lost two more of her children to illness.

Clare adds: “On the 1871 Census Julia was recorded as residing in Eyemouth, Berwickshire, with four of her own children as well as her mother, Joan, and four of her mother’s children, who are stated on the census as being nephews of Julia. They were, of course, her nephews, as well as being her half-brothers – all very confusing!”

Clare’s ancestors didn’t escape the Black Friday disaster of 1881 - 12 members of the Fairbairn family were among the 189 men who died - and she continues her account in the magazine’s March issue.

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

Berwick Advertiser provides news, events and sport features from the Berwick-Upon-Tweed area. For the best up to date information relating to Berwick-Upon-Tweed and the surrounding areas visit us at Berwick Advertiser regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website Berwick Advertiser requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.